podey replied to your post: also not a fan of “bullying” as a word...
i totally agree!!! its harassment and it should be called that. the term “bullying” doesnt have the same meaning and it makes it seem like its just something that happens
yeah, and it also completely equalizes experiences that really shouldn’t be? like people who are even being verbally and psychologically abused are invalidated by the “bullying” label, and everything below that—shit that’s still longterm damaging—is equally downplayed as “normal”. at best it’s unhelpful, at worst actively destructive. especially as a word for teenagers, who are often very quick to dismiss emotional experiences given the opportunity.
(not to mention “cyberbullying”, which is a phrase that’s even more euphemistic and toothless, with the added bonus of awkward parent-trying-to-seem-relevant-slang and on top of that a further (related) bonus that it’s a prefix typically used by people in that generation who do not see interpersonal interactions on the internet as “real”, making the word self-defeating in a connotational sense)
